Quick Update

Since finishing the first draft, I’ve found myself both liberated (from cranking out the requisite 800 words a day) and overwhelmed (by Christmas stuff.  There’s music to practice, stockings to sew, letters to write, etc.). 

But here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to as a family over the past few weeks:

Thanksgiving was spent at my parents’ house and was fun but exhausting.  William is pictured here wearing the turkey tail I made for Eleanor when she was a baby. 

My family has a special roll recipe that everybody adores, and my mom not only wanted to make enough rolls for the meal (3 rolls per person, minimum) but also enough for everybody to take a couple dozen of them home.

We made three big batches of 96 rolls each.  That’s 288 rolls total.  Did I mention that I collapsed on the couch 20 minutes before the meal began?

In between the roll insanity, I also made what may be my personal best apple pie.  I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make the layers on the top, mainly because this gives the pie 50% more crust.  Of all the things to have 50% more of, piecrust ranks on my personal top ten.

The other neighborhood news is that our local professional soccer team, Real Salt Lake, won the national championships a few weeks ago.  One of the team’s keepers, Nick Rimando, lives on my street, and all the neighbors decorated the trees and lampposts with balloons and streamers.  Someone even put a gigantic inflatable statue of a strongman on the Rimando’s front yard.  But my favorite detail was this:

Re-naming the street after the guy!  Gotta love it.